This workshop aims to take the fear out of weaving with fine silk using a few tricks of the trade to achieve excellent results. People arrive with their looms dressed and ready to go. We weave three samples: one a Turned Twill (or a 3/1 twill for 4 shaft looms) in which people use 60/2 silk for weft, one a dressy thick-and-thin weave alternating silk ribbon with 60/2 silk for weft, and the last a collapse fabric using fine crepe wool for weft. Students will come away with samples of three distinctly different and useful fabrics: one suitable for scarves, with a delicate hand and wonderful drape; one resembling rag rugs, suitable for jackets and coats; and one collapse-weave fabric with lots of texture and personality. Students will also have a primer on the history and potential of silk fiber.
Skill level: intermediate to advanced.
Materials fee payable to the teacher: $72. Denise will wind and hand-paint 4-yard warps for everyone and provide hand-painted silk ribbon, 60/2 silk in a range of colors, and overtwist wool crepe for weft yarns. Registration closes on November 15 to give her time to send all students their materials.
Schedule: Via Zoom with the following sessions:
January 9, 2021
1 1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m.
4:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m
January 10, 2021
9:30 a.m.–10:30 a.m.
1:00 p.m.–2:00 p.m.
4:00 p.m.–5:00 p.m.
Participant supplies required: Pre-warped loom
About the teacher: Denise Bolger Kovnat has taught at Convergence, MAFA and guilds across the United States and Canada. She is a member of Complex Weavers, the Weavers’ Guild of Rochester, and the Handweavers Guild of America and contributes articles to the magazine Shuttle, Spindle & Dyepot. For the Weavers’ Guild of Rochester, she has served as president and, for many years, program co-chair. A great source of pride is serving on the founding team for the Weaving and Fiber Arts Center in Rochester, NY, run by the Rochester guild since 2001. To date, her focus has been on extended parallel threadings, collapse fabrics, and Deflected Double Weave for collapse fabrics. Using these techniques, she enjoys making garments that display her hand-dyed, handwoven fabrics. Her garments have been juried into every Convergence fashion show since 2008. In 2016, her coat “Blue Rills” received the Virginia Harvey Award for the Best Use of Color from the Seattle Weavers Guild.
She learned to knit and crochet in grade school, inspired by her grandmother, who knitted patterns and garments despite being blind since birth. She has been weaving for more than 20 years: Nearly 40 years ago, she spotted some looms in a studio window and knew that she wanted to learn to weave one day. Denise blogs about weaving and fiber arts at www.denisekovnat.com. As for her tools: She works on a 16-shaft Toika computer dobby loom, a 12-shaft Macomber jack loom, a 12-shaft Voyageur table loom and an 8-shaft Structo.